Genetic heterogeneity of the 5′ uncoding region of the catalase gene in Hungarian acatalasemic and hypocatalasemic subjects

The 5′ uncoding region (165 bp), exon 1 (63 bp) and part of intron 1 (20 bp) of the catalase gene was amplified by PCR in acatalasemic (2), hypocatalasemic (19) patients and healthy individuals (10). The single strand conformational polymorphism of PCR products showed a highly polymorphic pattern. This polymorphism was supported by nucleotide sequence analyses yielding eight mutations. They are A to T, C to A and C to T at positions −21, −20, −18 of the 5′ flanking region, T to C at positions 4, 44, 49 of the non-coding region and C to T and C to A at positions 12, 27 of exon 1. Of these nucleotide substitutions, the fourth, fifth, seventh and eighth are novel mutations. The mutations 1, 3, 6, 8 were present at least at heterozygous level in all acatalasemics and hypocatalasemics. None of these mutations may be the causal mutation(s) of acatalasemia as each of these nucleotide substitutions were detected in healthy subjects with normal blood catalase activity.